Adventures in Music
My Musical History
I have been a music lover since I was a child. I loved to hear my mother sing, and I myself liked to sing as well. During that period, I lived in a beautiful mountain valley called Anji in South China and knew of music as nothing other than songs. I started to listen to classical music when I was fifteen years old with my foster family, and for the next eight years, I listened to numerous classical music cassette tapes and CDs and learned to appreciate classical music. I enjoyed classical music because it sounded beautiful and sometimes brought up very intense feelings; and I used music for personal entertainment and aesthetic experience.
However, even though I counted myself as a classical music lover, I knew very little about music. I only knew two classical music composers: Beethoven and Mozart. I never bothered to check the name of a piece of music or the name of its composer whether I liked the music or not. If the music sounded lovely, I would listen to it repeatedly. If the music did not please my ears, I would simply turn it off.
Although I attended a few performances while I was in Japan, I knew nothing about genres or orchestra seating plans. When I attended a symphony orchestra performance, I would pay attention to the appearance of the performers, such as what they wore and how they looked. Then I would focus on a single performer to see, not to listen, whether he/she had been emotionally involved while playing his/her instrument. Mostly, I liked to watch the ways the conductor was “dancing" with his baton. Finally, when I was tired of watching the performers, I would close my eyes and listen to the music. Now although I listened to the music with my eyes closed, I could still see the vivid picture of the performance with my imagination. Occasionally, I would open my eyes and observe the musical reaction of the audience around me.
When I attended a piano concerto, I loved to watch the fingers of the pianist dancing and running back and forth on the keyboard. When I got tired of watching, I would again close my eyes and listen to the live music. But this time the imagination was quite different from the imagination I had during a symphony. When I closed my eyes during a piano concerto, I imagined some dancers or ballerinas dancing lovely with the music on the stage.
Honestly, I never bought any tickets to any concert. The tickets were my husband got from his professor at the University of Tokyo and later his supervisor at work. I sometimes didn't really enjoy going to a performance as much as I appeared to be. I went to concerts to please my husband as well as to please the people who gave him tickets. I disliked going to concerts because it took us a long time to drive to and from concerts, and I disliked sitting a long time in my "cage"—the seat―when I didn't feel very well. On my way home I often told my husband that it was wasteful and unnecessary for the orchestra to hire so many musicians.
Preparing for My First Critical Engagement
I was excited about being able to attend college in the U.S. To enrich my life to the fullest, I took a music appreciation class the first semester in my freshman year. After taking my first music class in college, I felt so good to be able to understand something about music. When my professor Dr. Logsdon assigned us to write a reaction paper to a performance, I decided to go to the symphony orchestra with my seven-year-old daughter, Jen, who was going to represent her school for the University Interscholastic League Music Memory competition. I went to the Ticket Sale Office and asked the ticket seller to give me two tickets for the best seats. He, whose name was Israel, was a very nice gentleman who let me choose the seats from his computer screen. Since I could hardly make a choice, he took me to the auditorium to choose my seat. Because he told me that the orchestral seating would tend to face little to the right side, I chose to sit in the very front second row right side seat to hear and see better. “You won’t like a second-row seat,” he told me, but I said I would love it there.
I was excited and could hardly wait for the performance date to come, because I was sure I would enjoy the symphony and have a different experience from symphonies I previously attended. This time, I told myself, I knew what to expect! Because of Dr. Logsdon's music class, I knew how many musicians would be in an orchestra, what and how many instruments would be played in an orchestra, how each movement would be played as a genre for an orchestra, and how the orchestral seating plan would be, etc.
Even though I was quite confident with my assignment—the reaction paper—I decided to bring along a tape recorder and a video camera, in case I couldn't remember something well that I would still be able to have a chance for feedback. Before I went to the symphony, I repeatedly listened to each musical instrument from the Internet so that I would be able to distinguish the sound from one musical instrument to the other during the orchestra performance.
The orchestra was supposed to begin at 8:00 p.m., but I arrived one and one half-hour earlier with my daughter so that I could find a better place to park my car as well as make some notes.
Before I reached the entrance door, a fashionable lady called my name in a surprised and excited way and asked me to have dinner with her husband and her. I didn't know that lady, but since I had a bad memory to remember Americans’ face and name, I assumed I might have met her somewhere at a party, so I pretended I knew her as well. As we reached the dining room in the upstairs of the auditorium, she introduced me to her friends, and one of her friends said to me, "You played so well last time in Houston!" Before I could say anything, she continued as she looked at my daughter, "Is she your new student?" It was a mistake, because they thought I was a famous violin player. I guessed, like me, Americans couldn’t tell Asians from one to another, so I made an excuse and left the table. As I was walking down the staircase, a couple coming up the staircase asked me whether the conductor was there yet. As I learned that the conductor would be at the dinner, I went back and sat at the same table with a familiar face, Walter Furley, the newscaster from KZTV I saw often on the television. All the people in the dining room were dressed up in their best looks and so were Jen and I; but they were all around the ages of between 50-70. During the dinner, many people were interested in knowing me and we talked about culture and music and other things.
As the president of CCSO, Charles Doraine, came to shake hands with us, I learned that those guests at dinner were patrons, who donated money to support the symphony orchestra. I was ashamed that I donated no money but got a free dinner for two.
Nevertheless, I was glad to have the opportunity to shake hands with the conductor, David Bowden, and listen to his own story and the story of each composer of tonight's performance as well although I couldn't catch very many of his words. (It sounded as if Mr. Bowden admired Composer Johannes Brahms.) I was also happy to learn that we were going to have James Li, an outstanding Korean pianist, to play for us.
I became uneasy and distressed when David Bowden told us, making gestures with his hands, "Tonight's orchestral seating will be quite different than usual. I'm going to put first violins and second violins face to face, with first violins here and second violins here. They are face to face. The cellos will be there. The violas will be there..." Soon after he finished talking, I hurried off trying to find out the seating plan.
As I walked down the staircases, a familiar voice called me. She was a friend of mine. "Yizhen (which is my Chinese name), I didn't know you are an orchestra goer! Qimin (her son) is going to play 1st violin tonight! I'm so glad to see you here!" Anyway, I didn't bother to tell her that the reason I came to the symphony was for an assignment.
The Reaction to the Symphony Orchestra
When I entered the auditorium, I was disappointed to see that the stage hadn't been set yet, for there were only a few performers and instruments there, and I wouldn't be able to take any notes. When the performers were all settled down on the stage, I found I couldn't see well about the orchestral seating, since I was too close to the stage and the stage was too high from the floor and the first-row performers seemed taller than rest of the performers. I, however, was determined to enjoy tonight's programs anyway. As the first program, the Brown Orchestra, began, I was very carefully watching and to listening while I tape recorded. Although both the conductor and other musicians did their best, the music itself could hardly draw me any special feeling. The music sounded so plain to my ears, neither exciting nor sad, except for the third movement, which was graceful dancing music. Then I tried to distinguish the sound of musical instruments; but I could only tell the sound of flutes, oboes, bassoons, French horns, trombones, and trumpets. I couldn't even tell first violins from second violins.
Then I turned my head around to observe the listeners who were beside me and behind me. All of them, but one, sat awfully straight with awfully serious expressions staring at the conductor. The only exception was an old gentleman who closed his eyes and relaxed his back on his seat with his hands resting on his stomach. One might think he was asleep. But the expression on his peaceful and relaxed face told me that he was listening and enjoying the music.
I then paid attention to the conductor and the performers. My new discovery tonight was that it seemed the conductor was using his baton to hence and guide the musicians when to start and stop and how they should tend to play with their instruments, but to my surprise, the musicians were looking at the music sheet instead of the conductor. Then I started to think that the conductor was performing in his own way, a graceful and beautiful silent show as well as exercising for himself.
My eyes searched for the television newscaster Walter Furley and spotted him in the 9th row. Before the second program, the Piano Concerto, started, I went up to him and chatted with him as if we were good friends. Then I asked the couple next to Walter Furley if my daughter and I could switch seats with them and they agreed. Thanks to the nice couple that I would be able to make some videotape. During the break, a piano and two harps and some other instruments were added to the stage. Walter Furley told me that his wife, Patricia, was going to play the harp with her student. "But Patricia said that harp is very difficult to play," he added.
For the Piano Concerto, although James played well, I didn't enjoy it very much because I couldn't see his fingers dancing on the keyboard. The third program, the Big Band Fantasy, the first three movements, the music was more like a piece of lullaby. For the last movement, it seemed the music was made for dog racing or jump rope. At last, when extra trombones were added, the music made the coda quite special. Overall, I liked the last program, the Russian Easter Overture, the best. I liked this one not because the size of the performers was doubled. I couldn't explain why, but I just liked it because it made me feel lighter and happier. The tone of the Russian Easter Overture sounded wonderful when Qimin played the violin alone. The sounds of flutes and oboes were quite special when they stood out alone.
Jen fell asleep soon after the third program the Big Band Fantasy began, because the people before her blocked her sight. I myself was very tired, because I had to hold the video camera steadily with my right hand while I tried to pay attention to the performance. I was so distressed by the assignment that I didn't enjoy the symphony as much as the ones I previously attended.
Suddenly, Walter Furley gently tapped my arm and said, “Hide your video camara. They don’t want you to videotape the performance.” I hurriedly hid my video camara under my seat right before a security guard approached.
Afterwards
A week later, I perceived the symphony music differently as Jen and I talked about it while we were watching the videotape I made from the symphony. We also guessed the instruments we heard. At the symphony, I didn't hear the harps but the triangles. I paid extra attention to listening and watching the videotape. Neither Jen nor I heard any music from the harps. I was surprised that the triangles were played in the symphony, because in my music appreciation book, triangles were not listed as an instrument for a symphony. By reflecting on the experience of this symphony, I came up with a conclusion: never try to do one thing with more than one purpose, or you would end up disappointed and exhausted.
The music reaction paper was supposed to be 2-3 pages long, but I wrote and wrote and wrote until it reached twelve pages. I wanted to pleasantly surprise my professor and expected him to say, “Wow, what a hardworking student you are, Lily Lang!” But Dr. Logsdon refused to accept my paper. “Cut it down to three pages,” he told me.
I took the paper to the university’s writing center and asked for help. The tutor said, “Condense twelve pages to three pages? There is no way I could help. You must rewrite the paper.” I insisted the tutor read my paper and then advise me on the best way to rewrite it. However, she liked my paper as it was, so, the very nice tutor called my professor.
“I’m teaching a large class of over 100 students,” Dr. Logsdon told the tutor. “If everyone submits a 12-page paper, I won’t have the time to eat or sleep.”
The tutor went to see my professor. Finally, Dr. Logsdon accepted my paper. He gave me 95 points out of 100 points for the paper. “I absolutely enjoyed reading Lily’s music reaction paper,” he told the class. “If any of you want to submit a 12-page paper, please do so.”
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