The rollercoaster of Covid-19 has brought so many emotional spaces to every person. It feels self centred to dwell on the landscape for one’s self, however these emotions do need to be expressed and felt. With so much focus on the impact the this pandemic has had on the arts there is s feeling that one needs to defend arts, to defend music.
How can you tell someone to listen if they are deaf or to value health foods if they have only ever eaten MacDonalds? The special thing about music is that it is interpreted differently by each and every individual. When I play the viola I do not know exactly how another person is hearing it or interpreting it. I can however talk about how music has helped me and defined my life. My family is full of professional and amateur musicians, this is what brought my grandparents together and in such difficult times I think that music had a big part to play in both of their lives. I have never been a prodigy, however I have always loved to sing. As a tiny girl I would sing all day and this is why my piano teacher grandmother suggested I play the violin rather than the piano. I have struggled and persevered for the past 20 years on my two string instrument and one could ask why. I think the answer is that when I don’t practice I forget who I am. Music lets me express things that one cannot find the words to say, or even things I didn’t know were in me. Performing the works of composers I have in insight into people, into emotions. I can travel time and space. Going to a concert to listen I am transported from whatever I am experiencing and have been moved to tears by beauty.
I guess the answer I have been looking for over this pandemic is that we will always have music and I will always be a musician. A musician isn’t someone who is paid to perform music, it is anyone who feels and hears and expresses in sound. The other answer is to turn off the news and have the courage to keep practicing. Being a professional musician allows me the time to practice and the platform to collaborate and to perform however in the end I know it will all be ok and to keep persevering.