On an orchestra tour in Aspen, CO, I started warming up before an open-air performance, surrounded by the beautiful dissonant noises of a full contingency of strings playing whatever they wanted simultaneously and in small quarters. As a 17-year-old, I had been playing the cello for 11 years and loved it. I was reasonably good at it. That summer I had been busy spending quality time [and otherwise] with my future wife and hadn't so much as touched the cello in many weeks before the tour.
So I sat there in the middle of Kitschville and just started playing, barely able to hear myself. And...
... music came out!
Sorry if this doesn't sound profound, but it really was. Like I mentioned, I was a good cello player but I was not really a cellist. I didn't think that I ever would be; I considered cello playing just a vehicle for experiencing the chamber music I loved. So something in my mind, my fingers, my inner musikmensch, my muscles, just clicked and I knew how to really play. I didn't instantly become any better technically, that would be magic. But this was the next best thing to magic: somehow I figured out how to project, to vibrato, to sing, and to create music with my cello. I wasn't playing anything that had ever been played before [this was typical for me; I shouldn't have wondered why practicing didn't help my solo pieces much].
So I became a cellist. A great cellist? Nope, just a cellist. Sometimes I pull my cello out and just glory in the beautiful sound that comes out of it, feeling blessed that my brain mysteriously figured out how to play that day in Colorado. I've never forgotten.
So what happened? I have no idea. Maybe some final, last neural connection between different regions of my brain that allowed me to express music through the cello? Who knows? A blessing no matter how it came.
Has anybody else had an experience like this? Your brain just figured something else out without you knowing?
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4 comments:
I don't think I've had anything lasting like that. But there was one time in France...I was in serious MAJOR culture shock. Completely unable to function at all for the 10 days we were there. Even the strange smells were just overwhelming to my brain. I was on overload and just. shutting. down.
But there was one day walking on the lands at Versailles when our French friends just asked me a question and I opened my mouth and said the most spontaneous, incredibly complex French sentence I had ever (possibly have ever) said. It was cool.
Yes. A few times, all having to do with music and art. Pieces just fall together in a way that is better and greater than the sum of the parts.
I miss the cello. Say hello for me.
Cool! Thanks for the comments. I really wonder how this happens, how our brains chew on problems and figure them out with no input from our conscious selves.
When I create anything part of my brain (normally active) goes into meditation and a part of me that normally is dormant takes over. It's weird-- I don't know how to explain it-- esp. when I'm singing and not paying attention... it's speaking directly from my soul without thought for technique...
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