Grace Notes

It is a cruel thing to be full of longing for musical expression, and to be devoid of real musical talent.  It wouldn't have mattered so much if I weren't so sensitive to music, if I didn't understand how things are really supposed to sound.  But I am, and I do -- and my limitations have always been deeply, achingly frustrating to me.  I gave up piano when I was sixteen, partly because I had been emotionally brutalized by a teacher who was jealous of my expressive ability despite my complete lack of technical dexterity on the keyboard, and partly because I had to practice for hours and hours to achieve a minimal level of competence. 

I went to Oberlin College Conservatory as a musicology major, which requires that the student minor in performance of some kind.  I tried singing lessons; I'd dreamed for years of being a professional singer, but my voice wouldn't behave.  Subsequently I tried woodwinds, but had no talent for that either.  After I dropped out of college, I gave up music for a number of years.  I tried to learn the cello, but a pinched nerve in my bowing arm killed that dream as well.  I finally found a voice teacher who discovered that the key to my strangely-cracking baritone was the fact that I'm actually a spinto tenor, but despite making enormous strides as a singer, a chronic health issue causes me to become hoarse very quickly; so quickly that it's difficult for me to get through an hour's lesson, and singing even in a choir isn't an option.  And so I have passed my life with a passion for music, and no real natural gift, except as a listener.

Perhaps my incapacity bothered me so much because my father used to be a professional musician; he was a jazz trumpeter with a Dixieland band for several years, and very proficient.  Progressive nerve deafness forced him to abandon his career; although he could still play, the noise of the trumpet and the noise of the band caused sickening ringing in his ears.  As so many people do who find themselves at loose ends for a career, he turned to real estate sales.  Growing up in the real estate industry, and growing up hating my alcoholic narcissist father, I swore I would never sell real estate; I didn't want to be like him in any way. 

Yet here I am at the age of 34, selling real estate, and for much the same reason that he did . . . I can't support myself with my artistic life.  In his case, he was good enough but his talent was taken from him.  In my case, I'm not good enough.  I wish the parallels between us ended there, but they don't.  All my life I have fought the knowledge of how similar I am to my father, trying somehow to reconcile that with how horribly at odds we were when I was growing up, and with his failure as a parent due to his own deep psychological and emotional wounds.  We are both unbelievably strong-willed, often to our own detriment.  We are both compulsive personalities; I have managed to avoid addictions and turn that compulsion into a kind of perfectionism that is just as destructive in a different way.  We have a similar kind of concept-related intelligence; we have similar ideas of unhesitating generosity toward friends.  We both know how to manipulate people to get what we want; he chooses to use it for his own benefit, and I choose to use it as a negotiation tool in business.  I have often looked to him as an example of how I don't want to be.

In the last five years of my life, I have managed to make peace with my father and to forgive him for much of the pain he caused me, though I can't forget it or the impact it had and continues to have on me.  I miss not having had a father; it bothers me that he is not in my life in that capacity -- he's someone I know, who has been around for as long as I can remember; but except in a biological sense, he hasn't really been a father to me; I do not feel bonded to him in that way.

Yesterday I happened to be at my father's office when a co-worker gave him a trumpet to borrow.  He hasn't played in fifteen years, but has been thinking lately that he might enjoy playing a little again -- as much as he can without aggravating his hearing.  Things have changed a great deal since he gave up the trumpet, including hearing aid technology.  It might be possible for him to play again without suffering as he used to do.  The trumpet was a beautiful silver French concert instrument, tarnished despite the case.  I watched with avid interest as he screwed the mouthpiece on, and after a couple of air-filled hoots, produced a perfectly clean sound.  The trumpet was tuned in C rather than B-flat, so he wasn't able to play a scale easily, not being skilled in mental transposition; but he played reveille and taps, which do not depend upon the valves for pitch regulation. 

After watching him, I found myself filled with a desire to try to play the instrument, a desire that overrode my enormous self-consciousness regarding performance. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn't care if I looked or sounded stupid.  I just wanted to get my hands on that thing and see if I could make a noise with it.  The primary trick to playing any brass instrument is the curious formation of the lips, known as the embouchure.  It usually takes some time to figure out how to do this, but somehow I got it on the first try.  I missed it on the second attempt, but got it again on the third, and managed to produce a note with a controlled vibrato. 

"You know . . . I think you might finally have found your instrument," my father said, beaming.  I realized that one thing I admire about him is that if I were to have any talent for the trumpet, he would never regard me as competition.  He would love it if I were better than he is.  He would be proud of me.  I think he's proud of me anyway, but that would be a special kind of pride.  In all the heartbreaking failure of my musical life, I'd never tried a brass instrument because I didn't want to be like him.  Ever.  And yet there I was, selling real estate, and feeling my whole being itch to take that trumpet home and blast the hell out of it until I figured out how to throw it into second register, until my upper lip was sore with the beginnings of the scar that marks the brass player. 

"We should get a B-flat trumpet," he said.  "You know enough about music to teach yourself to play it."

"Well, after five minutes it's really too soon to tell whether I can play it," I said.

"You can play it," he said, as if there could be no question about it.

It's irrelevant, really, whether I can play the trumpet or not.  What is relevant is that this man is, in fact, my father . . . and I think he would like to fill that role in a way I can't trust him to do properly.  Our peace is one of safe distance; it's largely neutral on my part.  I think he'd like to be my father now, and I don't think I can let him; not quite yet, and perhaps not ever. 

When he put the trumpet back in the case, it was reveille and taps at the same time.